The shares dropped 3.4 percent in New York trading yesterday, the third-biggest decline in the 81-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index, after London-based Greg Smith made the accusations in a New York Times op-ed piece.

Smith, who also wrote that he was quitting after 12 years at the company, blamed Blankfein, 57, and President Gary D. Cohn, 51, for a “decline in the firm’s moral fiber.” They responded in a memo to current and former employees, saying that Smith’s assertions don’t reflect the firm’s values, culture or “how the vast majority of people at Goldman Sachs think about the firm and the work it does on behalf of our clients.”

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, 84, whose “Volcker rule” would limit banks like New York-based Goldman Sachs from making bets with their own money, called Smith’s article “a radical, strong” piece.

Even in an Occupy world, most Americans don't know exactly how the 1% does what it does. The mainstream media hasn't explained it, and the 1% likes things that way.
That's why we've created a new video series unmasking those in the 1% who are exploiting the 99%--name by name, fact by fact. Each short video--one minute apiece--lays out the truth about a different tycoon. These aren't opinions; these are facts, condensed into bite-sized chunks. Occupy has already revealed the country's widespread outrage at the 1%; now it's time for the plutocracy's dirty deeds to be common knowledge.
The best part? Brave New Foundation's audience chose the people we're highlighting. We solicited suggestions on nominees, narrowed them down to 30, and let our audience vote on which ones they thought deserved to be exposed. The new videos represent five of the top vote-getters, with more videos on the way for the rest. Here's one:
Of course, the 1% would like to keep its activities shrouded in secrecy...

Goldman Sachs bankers are the deserved target of a lot of Wall Street bashing by regular Americans whose jobs have been lost and homes foreclosed due to the many crimes (yes, crimes) perpetrated by the banks, insurance companies and ratings agencies. New York Post columnist John Crudele has challenged Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein to go up against him in a Wall Street boxing match:

Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman of Goldman Sachs, would probably like to see me hurt. And I’d like to see him investigated for insider trading.

So I figured a boxing match was in order. The only hitch, I can’t seem to get Blankfein to do it.

Let me tell you anyway how I almost became a pugilist.

A few weeks ago someone from a gym downtown was looking for some publicity and mentioned that there is a charity boxing match with Wall Street types going against each other scheduled for Dec.

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.

The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses — meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly commensurate with what they received during the bubble years. Still, the troops were worried: There were rumors that Dr. Ballsachs, bowing to political pressure, might be forced to scale the number back. After all, the country was broke, 14.8 million Americans were stranded on the unemployment line, and Barack Obama and the Democrats were trying to recover the populist high ground after their bitch-whipping in Massachusetts by calling for a “bailout tax” on banks.

Can you believe this guy? The Sunday Times gains unprecedented access to the world’s most powerful, and most secretive, investment bank:

“Aha! You catch us plotting in real time,” says Lloyd Blankfein, breaking away from a cabal of senior executives discussing his trip to Washington the previous day. Blankfein, 55, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, is wearing a grey suit with a jaunty Hermès tie with little red bicycles on it. In his hand, he’s carrying one of those cups of coffee that look bigger than the human stomach. Maybe it’s the caffeine, maybe it’s the tie — a birthday present from his daughter — but he’s in a remarkably jolly mood for a man everyone seems to hate. “It’s like a safari here,” he jokes. “You’ve come in to look at the animals.”

Blankfein may be Wall Street’s Sun God, but, with the economic outlook stormy, he doesn’t want to advertise it, so the merest hint of a status symbol or — horror!